Monthly Archives: April 2014

I hope that you all are having a fantastic week of sourcing and reselling. I am just getting back into the swing of things after returning from a much needed vacation. As I looked over my sales for the past two weeks, I noticed that a lot of products that I had every intention of selling on eBay some how made their way over to my Amazon FBA inventory. One of those products happened to be a set of Meaningful Beauty products that I picked up for $2 a set from an estate sale a month or two ago.

You are doing yourself a disservice if you are not keeping an eye out for beauty products at thrift stores, flea markets, estate sales, or yard sales — especially overpriced ones like Meaningful Beauty. I picked up two of these kits from an estate sale after researching the product name on my Terapeak app. I didn’t know much about this line, but I saw sealed beauty products in a tote bag and after looking at the sold listings on eBay, I did a little happy dance in the middle of a crowded room as I scooped them up and placed them in my bag.

It’s that time again for another weekly Amazon FBA roundup! I took things easy this week in regards to sending in any new inventory to Amazon. (Although I will admit that I have quite a bit of new inventory that has accumulated since a good deal of my online purchases to flip were delivered this week.) To be honest, I was completely BURNED OUT from prepping, cleaning, listing, labeling, packing and shipping the largest amount of inventory I have ever sent to Amazon. The great thing about Amazon FBA is that I can take a week off and the sales still come pouring in.

I purchased this collection of DVDs at an estate sale I attended almost 3 weeks ago. I certainly wish I had a “mother’s helper” at this auction because the sheer volume of media (i.e. VHS tapes, DVDs, books, records, etc) was astounding. This particular estate sale consisted of over 45 years of collecting. I didn’t even tackle 20% of what was available. The estate sale was so large that mid-week the company that ran it sent out an email alerting everyone that they had to rent a space to showcase all of the contents.

As a part of my goal to focus on Amazon FBA in the month of April, I wanted to write a post about what it takes to get started with Amazon FBA.

Amazon FBA is a great way to make money online, but it also takes money, time, and a whole lot more to be efficient and successful. I wrote this post with the “reseller” in mind, however, it still rings true even if you are small business owner looking to expand your presence online by utilizing Amazon to promote your products.

Here are a few things that you should be aware of before you get started:

#1: Amazon FBA will require more money, more supplies, more EVERYTHING!

Prepare to be amazed at the sheer amount of packing tape, poly bags, labels, toner, and other supplies that you will need at some point during your venture into Amazon FBA. You can certainly get by without purchasing all of these things, but there will come a time when you need them — and LOTS of them.

I ventured in Amazon FBA having already been a reseller on eBay. That means that I already owned a digital postage scale, a thermal printer, a laser printer, and various packing supplies.

The supplies I added after becoming heavily invested into Amazon FBA included:

I decided to do things a little differently this week in regards to my “FBA Friday” series. Instead of recapping sales from this week via a blog post, I decided to make a quick video of some items that I sourced over the past 2 weeks. Hopefully it will help you if you are looking for new niches to explore. Additionally, I hope that you will see some of these sales (because I have no doubt they will sell…I just don’t know when) in a future FBA Friday blog post.

I have officially changed “Watchout Wednesdays” to “What Sells Well Wednesdays.” This Wednesday I want to focus on what sells well on eBay.

A few days ago I sold the DVD set pictured above on eBay that produced a whopping 2000% return on my investment. This was NOT a thrift store item. I actually purchased it from my local library. Yes, that’s right…the library.

Many of the libraries in my area have Friends of Library (FOL) stores within the library to help raise funds. I decided to drop by to see if there were any books worth picking up for Amazon FBA, but as it turned out, I found quite a few goodies for eBay and this was one of them.

I typically come across a lot of investment related material when out thrifting and especially at Goodwill Outlet stores. Most of the time it features Guy Kawasaki or other well-known names. These types of items sell for quite a bit of money, even used. A typical investment course can set you back as little as $400, so then it reasons that there are many people out there looking for a cheaper alternative. If you look at some of the completed listings for similar items by this company, you will see that they sell for several hundreds of dollars.

Since I did not know much about this item, I had to use my Terapeak app to do some research! Even though I had never heard of IBD, when I see something new in package — even without an ISBN — I look it up. Terapeak showed that it had over a 100% sell-through rate. You just can’t beat those odds!